The present invention relates generally to brake control valves for the air brakes of a vehicle, and more specifically to a single sided brake control valve. Air brake control valves used in the railroad industry have generally included a center pipe bracket with a serve portion on the right side, and an emergency portion on the left side. The connections of the ports for the brake cylinder, brake pipe and reservoirs are in the back of the pipe bracket. The pipe bracket is mounted to the vehicle through vertical apertures in the pipe bracket. Typical examples are the ABD series and the DB-60.
More recently, there has been interest in a single sided brake control valve where in the emergency and service portions are mounted to a front face of the pipe bracket and the ports are on the back face. Early single sided control valves are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,192,960 and 1,502,521. The emergency and service portions are mounted to the top face of the bracket and the porting is on the bottom face. Later developments turned away from this technology and included a service and emergency portion mounted to common side face with the ports mounted to the bottom face. A typical example is shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,879,699; 1,910,544; 4,033,632; and 4,125,292. The mounting of a combined service and emergency portion to the left face and the porting to the right face of a pipe bracket is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,348. Although many ideas have been patented, not all of the them have been implemented or even accepted by the industry.
An early design by New York Air Brake Corporation, the Assignee of the subject application, is illustrated in Design Patent Application Ser. No. 29/012,476 filed Sep. 3, 1993, and shows a single sided control valve and pipe bracket having the service portion mounted to the adjacent left side of the front face and the emergency portion mounted adjacent to the right side of the front face. The brake pipe, brake cylinder and reservoir ports are on the back face with the brake pipe port substantially in the center, but closer to the right face. The manual release valve of the service portion extends to the left of the left face. A retaining valve is mounted to the bottom center of the front face between the service and emergency valve and adjacent to the handle of the cut-off cock mounted to the brake pipe port. The air filter is in the pipe bracket behind the service portion as required by a AAR Field Manual Rule 4, Item 4.
A similar valve was designed by Westinghouse Air Brake Corporation with the exception that the air filter is behind the emergency section contrary to the Field Manual Rule 4, Item 4. This leads to a lot of confusion in the field maintenance and results in the filter not being changed when they should be. Similarly, the Wabco design, which is illustrated in FIG. 1, uses vertical throughbolts to mount to the pipe bracket to mounting brackets, the mounting brackets are flushed to the front wall of the pipe bracket and extends past the back wall. This places the service and emergency portion in a cantilever relationship to the mounting bracket. This is an undesirable situation.
In both the New York Air Brake and the Wabco single sided design, the handle of the combined dirt collector and cut-out cock is inaccessible since it is on the back side of the pipe bracket with the handle accessible in one position from underneath the bottom wall. Closing the cock requires the operator to angle their arm under the pipe bracket and pull the handle forward into a horizontal position further bending and straining their arm. Excessive gasket changing and bolt cleaning is very awkward due to the cramp area of the location of the bolt. The manual release valve is historically on the left side of the service portion. By providing the service portion on the front face adjacent to the left side of the bracket, the release rod is closer to the front end of the car, which is to the left of the example used herein. In short platform cars or cars which have a slope sheet containers, for example, coal cars, a requirement that the release rod be 30 inches from the end of the car may not or cannot be met.
Thus, there exists the need for an improved single sided pipe bracket which is more user friendly and capable of meeting all of the ARR requirements.
Thus, this is an object of the present invention to provide a single sided control valve which is more user friendly.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a single sided control valve with the handle of the combined dirt collector and cut-out cock ready by accessible to the user and its position visible.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a single sided control valve which is capable of meeting the 30 inch from end of car requirement for the release rod valve in any and all situations.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a single sided control valve which is more stable in its mounting brackets.
These and other objects are achieved by providing the service portion mounted to the front face of a pipe bracket adjacent to the right face and emergency portion mounted to the front face adjacent to the left face. The brake pipe, brake cylinder and at least one reservoir port are on the back face and the brake pipe port is adjacent to the left face behind the emergency portion. A pair of brackets adjacent to the right and left faces mount the control valve to the vehicle. The mounting brackets each include a horizontal flange with apertures to receive the fasteners which mount the mounting brackets to the vehicle and the horizontal flange extends from the pipe bracket substantially past the front face. Thus, the horizontal flanges extend beyond the center of gravity of the control valve. Thus, the center of gravity is within the confines defined by the mounting brackets. This provides a more stable valve. Vertical flanges of the mounting bracket are mounted to a respective side face of the pipe bracket and horizontal flanges extend therefrom toward each other. This particular design of the pipe bracket and the mounting bracket can be mounted with the horizontal flanges adjacent either the top or bottom faces of the pipe bracket.
With the service portion mounted adjacent to the right face and the emergency portion mounted adjacent to the left face, the manual release of the service portion is between the service and the emergency portion. This displaces the release rod into substantially the center of the pipe bracket and therefore provides additional distance to the end of the car which is adjacent to the left side of the pipe bracket. A retaining valve is mounted to the front face of the pipe bracket above the release valve and between the service and the emergency portion. A cut-off cock or combined dirt collector and cut-off cock is connected to the brake pipe port adjacent to the left face of the pipe bracket and includes a handle to the left of the left face. This allows easy access of the handle without reaching under the pipe bracket and also provides visual indications of the position of the handle. Easy access is also provided to the dirt collector bowl. An air filter in the pipe bracket is behind the service portion. A brake pipe test port is also provided on the front face. Generally, the back face will include ports for two reservoirs, namely an auxiliary reservoir and emergency reservoir.